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  • Google Plus: Now For Teens Too
Technology Articles > Social Networking > Others > Google Plus: Now For Teens Too

Google has been attempting to gain Google Plus users for some time now. Even though the search giant claims that G+ is popular enough, some question this statement. Recently, Google has made G+ accessible to people under the age of 18. Prior to this accessibility, Google Plus was only available to those over the age of eighteen. So, why the change of heart? There are a couple of reasons why Google may want to entice the teen crowd.

Some of those reasons have to do with the overall popularity of G+. Other reasons have to do with added Google Plus security, and, finally, Google may benefit from getting teens to like the relatively new social network. All of these things should be taken into consideration, but the real important fact here is that if you’re under the age of 18 and you’ve been dying to test out G+, now’s the chance to jump on the bandwagon.

Privacy Settings

Some parents of teens and tweens may wonder whether or not Google Plus is safe for these under 18 types to explore. The answer to this question is: relatively. Google has set up new privacy standards that will appear every time a teen attempts to post something to G+. A sort of warning, if you will, about the content that a teen is trying to post and who will be able to read that content will pop up every time a new Google Plus teen user attempts to create G+ content. In addition, posts created by G+ teen users will only be viewable to people who are in that person’s immediate circles.

Due to these new privacy settings, teens will be relatively secure when using Google Plus. Of course, parents should still watch over a teen’s every move. Even though Google has put privacy settings in place, these settings may not prevent some people from joining a child’s G+ circles. If a teen accepts a user into a certain G+ circle, that user could still violate privacy setting or laws (technically, anyone who is in a teen’s circles can view content posted by that teen). Still, Google has made some efforts to protect teen posts (and users in general).

Will Teens Join G+?

Now that Google has allowed teens to sign up for a Google Plus account, one has to wonder if this allowance is enough to entice teens to join the social network. Some reports speculate that there simply isn’t that much teen interest in the network, though this may change over time. There’s also the new Google search terms to consider, since searching for anything using Google will now turn up G+ information (hard to ignore). The familiarity and commonality of Google Plus in search results may result in more teen users.

Right now, Facebook and Twitter still lead the social networks as far as popularity goes. Even though Google has been (somewhat desperately) trying to gain more users, attempts at this have failed for the most part. Now that Google Plus is open to teens and tweens, many wonder if Google will finally start to win the social media race. However, this reviewer is skeptical that Google will succeed in trying to win the under eighteen crowd.